Madeira - Day 5

Day 5 and first stop, the pond! We set off before dawn to give ourselves the best shot of seeing anything unusual that might have stopped over. As dawn broke unfortunately so did the heavens, with a one hour deluge. We got a bit frustrated waiting under cover of a building awning nearby while a river poured down from above. As the intensity lessened we headed over to the pond to take some snaps. The Little Egrets (five) were drenched and ruffled but the rising water did interest them:














Once the rain had stopped more birds emerged, including this Grey Wagtail, again a variation local to the island:














Also the Common Waxbills put in a brief but noisy appearance:














Possibly the most interesting bird however is this juvenile Moorhen, which suggests the other adult Moorhens in the pond had bred, which I don't believe has been recorded on the island before:














From the pond we headed inland and up to Rabacal, aiming very deliberately to try and get our first sighting confirmed of the Trocaz Pigeon, which was now becoming a bit of a major goal for the holiday as, due to a Portuguese national holiday, the ferry to the nearby island of Porto Santos was completely full - so we couldn't get across to check out the bird-life there.

It was drizzling at Rabacal and the light was very poor so no photos worthy of note, but we did complete the 3km steep descent to the levada and on to the waterfalls. The waterfalls themselves were accessed for viewing on a particularly narrow strip of concrete including some lean-out type navigation so I clung manfully on a rock on the back of the path as far from the edge as possible whilst Helen went round the corner to photograph the falls:




















We did see the Trocaz Pigeon, three individuals in fact, but the light, the wobbly cameraman and the rain ensured I only recorded very blurry out of focus images.

Down the steep and dodgy road into the centre of the island the views are stunning, even when it's raining. We stopped at a safe spot to snap this:
















Once we were able to join the main roads we decided to head for the Sao Lourenco peninsula, which is the easternmost spit of the island. The area is in need of recovery, having been trampled all over by tourists so there is now a pathway for you to follow, to the land bridge. I don't know what's beyond that as I couldn't handle the thought of the bridge (by this point I was all precipiced out). We did get to see the strata of the land:

















A great view of the Ilhas Desertas:

















And on the way back a small group of Berthelot's Pipits came very close. In fact they pretty much ignored us. This chap was scratching away at the mud for a while before hopping on to this stone:














From the end of the island the next stop was the river mouth in the village of Canical. The river-mouth is now very limited as the river itself has been built in to a narrow channel which is strewn with litter and human detritus, however as suggested there is a small group of Spanish Sparrows resident in the area, we photographed these three on a roof from the road:














It was here we met the Dutch couple who were birding on Madeira too, though they were doing a fortnight stay. They recommended we also try the river-mouth in Machico, which is where we headed next. This area is much cleaner as was evidenced by the increased numbers of birds, including this Sanderling:














and this group of (Ruddy)Turnstones:














I like this picture as it shows a juvenile (left) an Adult moulting out of breeding plumage (right) and two adults (top and bottom) in more advanced stage of the moult. From Machico we headed back to the hotel for a few well deserved beers!